Vindobona
Registered
I completed my AOW this weekend, 9 years (but only ~15 dives) after completing my OW.
I did it in a lake at 470m/1542ft of altitude, so a dry suit was required (water temperature at 25m/82ft was 5°C/41°F).
It was great fun and I had no issues with the deep dive and the navigation dive, but unfortunately I'm not experienced with dry suits and I had some issues with it that preveted me from relaxing and from fully focusing on the exercises.
We were expected to use only the drysuit for buoyancy, not a combination of BCD and drysuit. When I left the exhaust valve completely open, I dropped like a stone because all the air I let into my suit immediately went out again. Then I opened the exhaust valve 2 stops which worked well for a while, but after a few minutes going to a different depth I had buoyancy issues again. I always had either negative or positive buoyancy and just couldn't get it neutral. Every time I came to close to the ground, there was really bad sight for the whole group. This made me slightly stressed as I didn't want to be the one guy responsible for losing other divers from the group. I was breathing too fast because I didn't feel at ease, and obviously this (in combination with the constant inflating of the dry suit while attempting to get neutral buoyancy) made my air consumption very high.
I think I could do much better if I would use mainly the BCD for buoyancy (I don't have any issues getting perfect buyoancy with the BCD) and leave the exhaust valve of the drysuit open all the time and only use the inflator of the dry suit to avoid a squeeze, but not for buoyancy.
All in all, I'm happy that I completed it and I learned a lot, but my 2 main take-aways are the following:
Anyway, I'm going to Jordan in November and Vietnam in January, so plenty of opportunities for smooth fun dives
I did it in a lake at 470m/1542ft of altitude, so a dry suit was required (water temperature at 25m/82ft was 5°C/41°F).
It was great fun and I had no issues with the deep dive and the navigation dive, but unfortunately I'm not experienced with dry suits and I had some issues with it that preveted me from relaxing and from fully focusing on the exercises.
We were expected to use only the drysuit for buoyancy, not a combination of BCD and drysuit. When I left the exhaust valve completely open, I dropped like a stone because all the air I let into my suit immediately went out again. Then I opened the exhaust valve 2 stops which worked well for a while, but after a few minutes going to a different depth I had buoyancy issues again. I always had either negative or positive buoyancy and just couldn't get it neutral. Every time I came to close to the ground, there was really bad sight for the whole group. This made me slightly stressed as I didn't want to be the one guy responsible for losing other divers from the group. I was breathing too fast because I didn't feel at ease, and obviously this (in combination with the constant inflating of the dry suit while attempting to get neutral buoyancy) made my air consumption very high.
I think I could do much better if I would use mainly the BCD for buoyancy (I don't have any issues getting perfect buyoancy with the BCD) and leave the exhaust valve of the drysuit open all the time and only use the inflator of the dry suit to avoid a squeeze, but not for buoyancy.
All in all, I'm happy that I completed it and I learned a lot, but my 2 main take-aways are the following:
- I'm not a dry suit person. I will stick to tropical diving for a while before I give it another try.
- I'm done with additional certifications cards and courses for a while, and will focus on doing relaxing fun dives where I can improve my current skills. I will get at least 50 more recreational dives under my belt before I even start to think about doing the Rescue Diver course.
Anyway, I'm going to Jordan in November and Vietnam in January, so plenty of opportunities for smooth fun dives